Rays keeping cool in pennant chase heat

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A five-game winning streak, 12-0-1 in series over the past six weeks and the best record in baseball.

All summer long, the first-place Tampa Bay Rays have been hearing how difficult it’ll be to win in September, so they can’t think of a better way to enter the final month of the regular season.

They’re certainly not showing any signs of cracking under the pressure of a pennant race.

“There’s always these arbitrary or fabricated moments that everybody always wants to put weight on,” manager Joe Maddon said, rejecting the notion that his young team is about to find out what real baseball is all about.

“I want to avoid that,” he added. “I want this group to avoid that.”

A year after finishing with the worst record in the major leagues, the Rays not only are 33 games over .500 and on pace to win 100 games, but they’re playing so well that the big question now is not so much can they stay in front as can anybody catch them.

With a weekend sweep of Baltimore, Tampa Bay extended its lead in the AL East to a season-best 51‚Ñ2 games over the Boston Red Sox. The third-place New York Yankees, who start a three-game series at Tropicana Field today, trailed by 121‚Ñ2 after play Sunday.

The Rays’ streak of 13 consecutive series without a loss since the All-Star break is the longest in the majors this season. And, they’ve managed to keep winning despite playing much of August without Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria and Troy Percival.